Can Hypnosis Be Used to Help You Forget Painful Memories?

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Marilyn

We all know that people can be hypnotized to help them ­remember lost or ­repressed memories. From a scientific standpoint, why can’t hypnosis be used to allow people to ­forget ­traumatic or painful memories?

Marilyn responds:

It can, but it doesn’t have the most desired effect—to help people feel better. Why? ­Because memories are ­chemical, meaning that they have substance, however slight. (Otherwise, they could not exist.) People who can be hypnotized—not ­everyone can be hypnotized, among them yours truly—may ­respond to the suggestion to “forget” ­certain events, all right, but this action simply prevents them from being able to recall the episodes. The memory itself still exists in their brains, and so does the aftermath and the many relevant associations that are accessible, right up to the present. The result is that the people still feel bad but ­cannot recall why. ­Eliminating the physical matter of the memory is beyond the reach of hypnosis. And how would the long-term rami­fications of the event throughout one’s life be eliminated, anyway?

By the way, when the ­suggestion to forget is withdrawn, all of the memories ­return, which is ­understandable: After all, they never left; they were just ­inaccessible.